History

This page provides a summary of the history of the site. It is being continually revised and extended as new information comes to light. Please contact us if you have any relevant information, artefacts or memories of the site and the people connected with it.

Origins

Hemingfield Colliery, also known as Elsecar Low colliery, was developed for Earl Fitzwilliam in the 1840s, under the management of Benjamin Biram (1803-1857), his Steward, mineral agent and general manager. It formed part of the Earl’s Elsecar Collieries, consisting of Elsecar High, Mid and Low pits. Earl Fitzwilliam also owned a further group of pits around Park Gate; both groups were close to the heart of his southern Yorkshire estate, as indicated on the map below:

Sinking the Pits

At Hemingfield, the work to dig out the shafts, known as ‘sinking’, took a number of years to complete. The work hit a number of problems with gas and water before the winding pit finally reached the coal of the Barnsley seam in late 1847, at a depth of 157 yards. This seam, consisting of coal measures 9ft 5in thick was also sometimes called the ‘Elsecar coal’.

When at work the Hemingfield Colliery consisted of several shafts, for pumping water from the pit, for winding coal, and for improved ventilation as the workings expanded further underground. The main working shafts were:

Two downcast pits, each 468 feet deep:

i) a circular ‘engine’ or pumping pit, served by a Cornish engine fired by three boilers and raising water in three lifts – two rams of 60 yards each, and a bucket lift of 35 yards.

ii) an elliptical winding shaft worked by a 30 HP high pressure engine with flat hemp ropes over drums;

Two upcast shafts (sunk c.1852-3 to improve ventilation):

iii) a circular upcast shaft, of 9 ft diameter

iv) a circular upcast shaft of 7 ft diameter.

When first opened the colliery already benefited from a connections to the Elsecar branch of the Dearne and Dove Canal, with its own loading basin, the Hemingfield Basin which survived today. Later it also gained a connection to the newly-laid South Yorkshire Railway as the line was opened in 1850 – the Elsecar branch of this railway is still running carrying passengers as the Elsecar Heritage Railway.

In 1851 the coal from Hemingfield colliery was sent to the Museum of Practical Geology to be tested for its suitability for fuelling Royal Navy ships. It was described as follows:

“The vein has a dip of 1 in 12 towards the north-east, and is usually about 9 feet in thickness. The overlying stratum is “stone bind” and the subjacent, fire-clay. The coal is worked in faces 40 or 50 yards in length. The principal market is Hull, which is about 80 miles away from the colliery, but large quantities are consumed by iron-works in the immediate neighbourhood of the mine. The present price is 5s 9d per ton of 21cwt. […] During the experiments it was found to light easily, burn freely, and get up steam rapidly; considerable quantities of ash were, however, produced, and unless the fire was frequently cleared, the draught became choked, and the clearness of the fire impaired.“

Museum of Practical Geology. Third Report on the coals suited to the Steam Navy
by Sir Henry de la Beche and Dr Lyon Playfair, London 1851 London: William Clowes and Sons, p.26

1852 – Disaster strikes

At 1.30 pm on 22nd December 1852 an explosion underground claimed 10 lives and injured a further 12 miners. An inquest followed, led by Coroner Thomas Badger, and the Mines Inspector for Yorkshire, Charles Morton admonished the management and the men, though the effects would have been significantly worse had the ventilation of the workings not been divided under Biram’s guidance. Printed rules were thereafter required for the safety of the miners.

After 1852 Hemingfield, like all of Earl Fitzwilliam’s pits, enjoyed a relatively good record of operations – though mining was by no means a safe profession as the yearly record of accidents due to roof falls testify.

1850s-1920 – regular working and gradual exhaustion

Superintendence of the mines passed from Benjamin Biram to John Hartop (1815-1902) following Biram’s death in 1857. Railway contracts brought prosperity to the collieries, together with new customers in London and the South. Equally the growth of local ironworks at Elsecar and Milton under the Dawes brothers guaranteed a steady demand for Elsecar coal. By 1869 Hemingfield was raising 500 of coal tons per day. Ten years later it was still the busiest of the three Elsecar pits then at work (the other two being High Elsecar and Simon Wood).

On 23rd July 1883 the old pit headgear at Hemingfield was taken down. A new set was up by the 4th August and coal winding recommenced on the 6th. John Hartop resigned as General Manager in June 1886, being replaced by Thomas Newbould (1845-1933) on 1st July that year. Newbould had worked for Earl Fitzwilliam since the 1860s, becoming manager of the Low Stubbin pit in 1870 following the death of his uncle Thomas Cooper. He occupied a number of roles prior to his retirement as Agent and General Manager in 1921. His period of service spanned the closure of High Elsecar (1889), Simon Wood (1903), Hemingfield (1920) and Low Stubbin (1920) collieries as well as the new sinkings at Elsecar Main and New Stubbin at the beginning of the 20th century.

1920-1989 – Pumping station

Hemingfield Colliery ceased drawing coal for Earl Fitzwilliam on May 15th 1920 at which time the South Yorkshire Pumping Association took over the pumping at this pit, as well as further pumping stations at Elsecar and at Westfield. The Association had been established by 15 local collieries who became alarmed at the flooding of old abandoned mine workings in the Barnsley seam – the Association was formed to tackle and prevent the impact of rising water on active and future working elsewhere in the district.

The initial group of 15 colliery companies in the Association consisted of:

Brodsworth Main Colliery Company Ltd (reg.1905)

John Brown & Company Ltd (Aldwarke Main, Car House and Rotherham Main collieries)

Prior to the Association’s installation of electric pumping equipment, the old Hemingfield Cornish pumping engine was able to pump ten strokes a minute, working 7 days a week, the total quantity being pumped was 30,000 gallons per hour.

In August 1929 the Pumping Association was put on a more formal statutory basis as the ‘South Yorkshire Mines Drainage Committee’ under section 18 of the Mining Industry Act, 1920 (Statutory Rules and Orders No.803 of 1929). The scheme’s boundaries were amended in October 1936, and ten year later the Committee’s property and powers were absorbed by the National Coal Board under Schedule 3, Part II of the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act of 1946, described as “An Act to establish public ownership and control of the coal-mining industry and certain allied activities; and for purposes connected therewith.” saw the nationalisation of the industry from 1 January 1947.

OS Map of Hemingfield, Emergency Issue 1938

Functioning as a pumping station, under the South Yorkshire Mines Drainage Unit, Hemingfield would survive the next forty years quietly working away, a mute witness to the changing political landscape, and to the decline and fall of an industry it had once been spared to help preserve. Hemingfield outlived its younger sibling, Elsecar Main Colliery, just down the road. The first sod of the upcast shaft at the ‘new’ pit had been dug in July 1905, but the whole pit was closed in 1983, and demolished by 1987. In 1987 the NCB became the British Coal Corporation and the pattern of pit closures continued. The South Yorkshire Mines Drainage Unit closed and Hemingfield was managed from Silverwood Colliery. Pumping was finally discontinued in October 1989, though the site was retained as a pumping station by the South Yorkshire Group of British Coal.

1994 – Privatisation and the beginning of the end

The passing of the Coal Industry Act 1994 marked the end of nationalisation and the creation of a new, part privatised system – mineral assets and subsidence liabilities being assigned to the new Coal Authority, while the remaining commercial interests of British Coal Corporation were sold to a number of private companies. Hemingfield itself became the property of Central and Northern Mining Limited (est. November 1994). In December 1994 the new company which had taken on much of the UK’s deep mining changed its name to RJB Mining (UK) Ltd, and later still, in May 2001, it became known as UK Coal Mining Ltd.

Meanwhile the site itself was becoming overgrown and neglected. Around 2008, it suffered from cable theft and vandalism, including significant fire damage. In December 2012 the UK Coal Group companies were restructured into Harworth Estates (dealing with property) and UK Coal Mining Holdings Limited, of which UK Coal Mining Ltd was a subsidiary.

2014 – FoHC take over

In 2013, after a period of very public difficulties following a fire at Daw Mill Colliery, UK Coal Mining Ltd, a division of the UK Coal Group, went into administration. These events led to the establishment of the Friends of Hemingfield Colliery (FoHC) and in December 2013 the group made an offer to purchase the site to safeguard it for the future. Subsequently the administrators BDO undertook the winding up (a Creditors’ Voluntary Liquidation) of the company which had been renamed Juniper (No3) Ltd. Hemingfield pit with its two remaining shafts and headgears was part of the property to be liquidated. The Friends offer was accepted, but the transaction was not completed until 27th June 2014. The group is now eager to press forward with its own plans to repair and refurbish the buildings and to redevelop the site as a visitor centre, with community and social enterprise initiatives to attract visitors and help fund further improvements.

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5 thoughts on “History”

How can I get in touch with you. My father worked as a pony lad at Old Hemingfield from about 1914. Your photos don’t show some of the features which I remember.
Roy Broadbent {son of Herbert Broadbent}
01226 710406

The pumping station house on wath road was run by my uncle Charlie an auntie may , I used to visit the house with my mom when I was a kid , I’m trying to trace back , my moms name was peach , our visits were mid 50s , the sons of May were do and Harry , think Harry married Doris , don I forgot , I’m now 72 so the sons would be in there 80s. My moms maiden name is olive peach , who moved to burton wood with her mother , I’d be grateful for any more info , thank you. Graham Phillips

MY GRANDFATHER TOM HAGUE WAS ONE OF THE LAST OFFICIALS OF HEMINGFIELD COLLIERY I THINK HE WAS EITHER A DEPUTY OR OVERMAN HE LIVED IN THE HOUSE THAT WAS BUILT FOR THE FIRST MANAGER OF THE PIT IT CAN BE SEEN FROM YHE PIT WHEN HEMINGFIELD CLOSED HE WENT TO WORK AT THE SKIRES SPRING ALSO KNOWN AS SLUDGE MAIN TWO OF HIS SONS MY UNCLES ALSO WORKED AT HEMINGFIELD.
MALCOLM HAGUE